February 14-2014
The United States says the jamming of foreign broadcasts into Iran has ended and Washington is therefore lifting its sanctions against Iranian state broadcasting.
The Associated Press quoted a US official as saying the sanctions would be resumed if Iran resumes jamming.
The official said Washington acted after determining that “harmful satellite interference” had ceased. He did not say when it had ceased.
The United States last year levied sanctions on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which runs all of Iran’s television and radio stations, after Iran had ignored repeated demands that it stop jamming satellite broadcasts from abroad.
The AP said the sanctions waiver would allow foreign companies—but not American companies—to provide IRIB with satellite services without facing American penalties.
Iran’s stations that broadcast abroad in many languages have effectively been blacked-out from satellites by the sanctions. But the stations still operate over the web, which is becoming a more common method for people to watch foreign broadcasts.
The cessation of Iranian jamming comes as jamming has emerged as a major public issue in Iran. Many people in Iran have long been concerned about possible health damage from jamming—which is essentially a broadcast of noise on the same frequency as the broadcast the regime wants to block.
Health Minister Hassan Qazizadeh announced last week that he had appointed a committee to research the impact of jamming signals on public health. He said the committee has been at work for three months and so far has found no harmful effects. But he emphasized that the committee’s work is not yet done.
Most scientists in the Western world do not consider jamming to be harmful, just as they do not find broadcast waves to be harmful. Qazizadeh said, “There are many rumors about the health effects on people from jamming…. But we can state that many of these rumors, from a scientific viewpoint, have no validity. To say that jamming causes illnesses and miscarriages is not something that has a scientific basis.”
In October 2012, Dr. Abutaleb Saremi, head of the Sarem Cell Research Center, drew attention when he asserted that jamming was causing a rise in miscarriages.
President Rohani has long mocked the jamming program as useless and unsuccessful. At one point, he said, “You can find satellite television even in the villages. In fact, the villages have more satellite receivers than the urban areas.”
It has never been revealed what state agency is in charge of the jamming program or how the jamming is done. A few years ago, some Tehranis said they noticed a huge increase in flagpoles being put up around the capital city and the popular view today is that they are really jamming transmitters.